Guide
The same Praxis test has a different passing score in almost every state
Most people assume a passing score is a property of the test. It is not. ETS writes the test; each state decides what counts as passing on it. Of the 87 Praxis tests adopted by eight or more states, 85 have states that disagree about the number.
What that looks like in practice
Take Business Education: Content Knowledge, Praxis 5101. It is adopted by 37 states. The lowest qualifying score is 142 in Arkansas. The highest is 174 in Wyoming. Same questions, same scoring, 32 points between passing and not depending on which side of a state line you took it.
So the single most common mistake we see is someone reading a score forum, or a friend’s advice, or a national prep site, and calibrating to the wrong number.
The ten widest gaps we found
Tests adopted by at least eight states, ordered by how far apart the states are.
| Test | States | Lowest | Highest | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Education: Content Knowledge (5101) | 37 | 142 Arkansas | 174 Wyoming | 32 |
| Latin (5601) | 29 | 131 West Virginia | 161 Rhode Island | 30 |
| Theatre (5641) | 28 | 132 North Dakota | 162 Utah | 30 |
| Geography (5921) | 16 | 140 North Dakota | 168 Maryland | 28 |
| Special Education: Foundational Knowledge (5355) | 34 | 132 Arkansas | 158 Wyoming | 26 |
| Marketing Education (5561) | 21 | 144 Pennsylvania | 169 Tennessee | 25 |
| Middle School Social Studies (5089) | 30 | 140 Missouri | 165 Vermont | 25 |
| Middle School Mathematics (5164) | 37 | 141 Arkansas | 165 Wyoming | 24 |
| General Science (5436) | 28 | 128 Missouri | 152 New Mexico | 24 |
| Chemistry (5246) | 37 | 133 Arkansas | 156 New Jersey | 23 |
Why this matters more than it sounds
A retake plan is built backwards from a target. If your target is off by fifteen points you will either under-prepare and sit it too early, or over-prepare an area that was never going to decide the outcome.
It also changes which areas are worth your time. Needing four more points and needing twenty more points are different problems, and they call for different plans. One is a tune-up on the heaviest domain. The other is a rebuild.
Check your own state’s number before you build a study schedule around somebody else’s. Find your state and your exam.
Where these numbers come from
ETS publishes each state’s qualifying scores, and we harvest them monthly and recompute this page from the result, so the figures above are not a snapshot somebody typed once. 87 tests here are adopted by eight or more states; the full set we hold is larger.
Treat this as a study-planning reference, not an official determination. Your state department is the authority on your requirement, and requirements do change.